17. We Can't Stay Mad Like This Forever

Ibis sat in the Dojo across from Leo, trying to meditate. She wasn't particularly good at it, but Leo had been encouraging. He had said it was a good way to sort her thoughts, clear her mind, and remain in control of her emotions.

She needed that.

She'd never liked sitting still. She was too antsy. Especially now, with the tension between all of them, it was hard to relax. She and Mikey were on good terms, and Donnie was too focused on finding Bebop and Rocksteady to have beef with anyone.

She hadn't spoken to Ardyn. There was nothing she could've said that wouldn't have made things worse. There was no sense in pushing it.

Raphael seemed wary of her. She often felt his eyes on her when she trained with Leo, or on nights when she would patrol with the team. But he never said a word.

It hurt, but she didn't think there was anything to be said.

It probably hurt Leo more than it did her. This was his family, after all. No matter how close she'd become with the brothers, it would never be the same. How could it be? They'd grown up together, trained together... suffered and celebrated together. A bond like that was so much stronger than Ibis could ever know.

It was one she never had.

So she put her feelings aside. The team needed support, not another set of emotional turmoil. So that's what she would be; another leg to stand on. She owed them that much.

In her focus, she had lost touch with the room. There was a shift she should have noticed, but didn't. Leo had gotten up and left, leaving her alone to her thoughts. When her ear twitched, finally feeling the air of serenity had faded to one of tension, someone else spoke to her.

"Sparky?"

Ibis took a breath.

"Are ya ever gonna look me in the eye again?"

Ibis opened her eyes, her expression neutral. The red irises that used to hold so much fire seemed to turn to stone as they fell on him.

Raphael's face was hard to read as he knelt before her. But he was studying her.

She raised a brow expectantly, as if to say 'what do you want?'.

"Yer still mad at me," he stated quietly, the gold in his eyes showing in the dim light.

Ibis closed her eyes again and spoke in a sigh, "No, Red. I'm not mad."

"Bullshit," he countered, voice still quiet. "Ya haven't talked to me since the-" his voice faltered. "...since the incident."

"Didn't have anything to say," she replied, eyes still closed.

"Ya always got somethin' ya say," he argued, a hint of strained humor in his voice.

"Nothing you haven't already heard," she answered.

He groaned, "Aw, come on, Sparky. Yer tellin' me you wouldn'ta done what I did?"

"I didn't do what you did," she opened her eyes and stared pointedly at him.

"You can honestly say yer okay wit' all a dis?" He gestured to her, his tone becoming more agitated.

Her brows lowered, "Why shouldn't I be? There's nothing wrong with me."

"That ain't what I meant 'n' you know it."

"I know what you meant," she snapped, voice even. "I'm happy like this. If I never spend another day in line at the DMV, or stuck in traffic, or pushing my way through a sea of people that couldn't care less about the world, I'd consider myself lucky."

"Yer tellin' me there ain't nothin' up there worth livin' for?" he leaned at her, challenging.

"There sure as hell isn't anything up there worth dying for," she growled, her voice growing in volume. "I've seen the world up there. I spent my whole life up there. And you know what I found? Humanity is a greedy, selfish pile of bullshit."

"You'd really give all that up?" he all but shouted in disbelief. "For this?!"

"Why shouldn't I?" She stood, squaring up against him, "What about up there is so goddamn special? What could you do up there that you couldn't do down here without having to pay somebody?"

"Why's it such a bad thing to not wanna be a sewer monster for the rest a my life?" He stood to look her in the eye, a feral light in his heated gaze. "To have a place a my own? Maybe a family?"

Ibis looked away from him, grinding her teeth. She raised a clawed hand to her face tensely, but sharpened the gesture to point at him, "All you're doing is holding yourself back." It came out in a growl so low it was almost inaudible, her eyes burning. "Not the mutagen, not Leo, not the status quo- You. Don't look at me like I'm the one with the problems, when you can't even stand to look in the mirror."

He lowered his brows, baring his teeth, "That ain't the case, an' you know it!"

"Yes it is!" she exploded. "Being human doesn't mean being accepted! It never has!"

"Neither does bein' a mutant freak!"

She put her hands up to her head, "God, Raphael, you're so dense that you can't even- Gah! All you know is what's here! How can you possibly know that it's better out there when you've never seen it?!"

"How can ya see so much out there and just throw it away?!" he argued.

"Because it's garbage!" she yelled back. "All of it! It's absolute shit out there! And it'll eat you alive!"

"Maybe I want that!" he threw his arms out. "Maybe I wanna be chewed up and spat back out!"

"Then you're fucking beyond help!"

With that, she turned and left the dojo.

...

Ardyn missed a lot of things.

She missed her apartment. She missed the softness of the cotton sheets on her bed. The soft beeping of her coffee maker that used to wake her up in the morning.

She missed the sunrise.

Her sleeping schedule had altered completely since being stuck in the lair. She slept when she couldn't keep her eyes open anymore. Leo had offered up his room, but she knew it was his area of solitude. She couldn't bring herself to ask him to vacate it for a few hours so she could sleep, so most of the time she would just lay her head down on the table in front of her.

Raphael had given her a blanket to keep over the back of her chair for those instances. It was soft, chunky-knit, and smelled of fabric softener. It was one of the most precious things in the world to her right now.

Most of all, though, she missed Leo.

He was cordial toward her, of course. Polite in passing, 'good morning' and 'good night'. Occasionally she would wake up from a short nap at her station to a cup of warm tea, varying in flavor but always perfectly made. But that was it. He didn't practice French, or teach her any more Japanese, they didn't share books... She missed him. She supposed that, even if her feelings for him hadn't blossomed from a bud of platonic comfort to full-blown romantic longing, she still would feel the emptiness.

Her eyes often fell on the bracelet he made for her. It had stayed on her wrist during her mutation, but it was a little tighter than it used to be. It didn't bother her, she didn't want to take it off anyway. But maybe, if she couldn't see it, her chest wouldn't feel so tight.

She was pulled from her thoughts at the sound of someone walking into the lab. Her eyes landed on Ibis, who was carrying two plates, and her stomach dropped.

"Hey, sweet pea," Ibis greeted softly through the tension in the air. "It's been a while since you two've eaten, so I brought some sandwiches."

She set the plate before Ardyn, then turned to set the other in front of Donnie. He immediately grabbed it and bit into the sandwich without taking his eyes off the screen. A muffled sound of gratitude came out around the food in his mouth, making Ibis hum a laugh and pat his shoulder.

Then she turned back to Ardyn.

"How long has it been since you stretched your legs?"

Ardyn wiggled her toes. They were nearly asleep. She couldn't remember the last time she'd gotten up. Before her last crash?

"A while," she answered, noncommittal.

"Let's take a walk," Ibis tilted her head toward the door. "I know you need one."

Ardyn sighed. This was Ibis's way of reaching out. It was gentler than she'd expected. Then again, Ibis had been different since she'd come back into Ardyn's life. The harshness had smoothed out considerably. It was almost as if Ibis had gotten tired of keeping up the armor of rage and stubbornness.

She grabbed her sandwich and stood stiffly.

Ibis watched her struggle with her tail and wings around the swivel chair. Her limbs were thin from lack of movement, and her movements were stiff from sitting too long. It broke Ibis's heart that Ardyn couldn't look past the trauma. She was hurting herself by refusing to accept the way things were, and wouldn't hear a word about it.

They walked down the tunnel, the sound of their feet padding on the cement and Ardyn's tail dragging were the only things breaking the deafening silence. Ibis wasn't sure where to begin. Neither of them had changed their minds, and nothing could be said that would began to alter that fact. Even so, Ibis was determined to at least bridge the gap.

"I'm glad you decided to play music again," she began. "I didn't know the piano could be so... soothing."

Ardyn smiled, "I learned to play when I was in Paris. It's the most beautiful sound in the whole world to me."

"Your mama played."

Ardyn turned to look at her, "She did?"

Ibis nodded, giving a soft smile. "The house we lived in had a big one. It was a room pop added on just for her. High ceiling, for sound. She preferred jazz, though. Back then, I was more concerned with what the dog was doing. But you used to sit in there with her, in your little bassinet."

Ardyn's expression remained soft as she turned back to face the way they were walking. "Do you remember a lot about her?"

Ibis shrugged, "A little. I wasn't close with her. She loved me as best she could, bless her heart, but I think she didn't really know what to do with me."

"No?"

Ibis laughed, "She was so young. About your age, when you two were born. Perfect little golden-haired twins. I was this loud, crazy, mud-covered monster, just like my mama. Pop wasn't around to help out much, but they both did their best."

Ardyn nodded.

"The boys are doing their best, too, ya know."

The tone was gentle, but it still felt like a slap to the face. Ardyn didn't say anything.

"Leader Boy misses you."

"That why he's always with you?"

Ibis grit her teeth to not fire back at the searing comment. "He needs someone to support him, just like everybody does sometimes. He's got a heart under all that, and it breaks just like everybody else's."

Ardyn pinched her brows at her, "What do you mean?"

"You hurt him, sweet pea," she answered as gently as her rasping voice allowed. "Now he thinks he's lost you."

Ardyn looked down at her feet. "Because I'm a freak."

Ibis's head snapped her way, "What?"

"I'm ruined," Ardyn whispered. "My body is ruined, and it ruined my mind too."

"Do you really believe that?" Ibis questioned. "That Leo can't see past the things you think are wrong with you?"

"What else could it be?"

"All the things you hate about yourself are things he's accepted in himself," she answered. "If you hate being a mutant so much, what do you think is going on in his mind?"

Guilt knotted in Ardyn's stomach. A cold stone that dropped all the way to her feet. It had never occurred to her that her suffering would be contagious. She'd never wanted to hurt him. He was so wonderful, so understanding, that she couldn't help but love him. All the things he'd done for her that he'd never known how to do before, like comforting her when she was scared, or being so willing to protect her from all the things that she'd been terrified of her whole life.

And how had she repaid him?

"Oh, no," her breath fell softly from her lips. "I didn't-"

"I know you didn't," Ibis replied. "But I'm not the one you should be worried about."

Ardyn wrapped her arms around herself, "What do I do?"

Ibis pursed her lips in thought.

...

Leo headed to the dojo. Sleeping wasn't coming easy to him these days, so he spent most of his free time meditating. It was the closest thing he could get to relaxing. Especially when Ibis was with him. She took the pressure away. Other than Master Splinter, she seemed to be the only one to understand the stress he was under in his position. That, and she had a way of reading people. She always seemed to recognize what he needed, whether it was words, space, or just silent company. She also seemed to understand how he felt about Ardyn.

He stopped just before the entryway, hearing Ibis's voice.

"...can't just jump into it. It takes time."

"How much time did it take you?"

Leo pinched his brows. That was Ardyn's voice. What was she doing in the dojo with Ibis when everyone else was asleep?

He rounded the corner, peeking just enough.

Ibis stood tall on one side, facing Ardyn. "A week or so. But I wasn't atrophied."

Ardyn gave her a dirty look.

Ibis gave her a look right back, red eyes seeming to glow.

Ardyn finally relented, "Fine, keep going."

Ibis adjusted her stance, "Good. Okay, just like you were. Think of them like your arms."

Leo watched as Ardyn's wings stretched outward. They were stiff, but a very impressive size. They made her have to adjust her feet to keep balance, as if they were heavy. Leo hadn't watched Ibis train with her wings. She'd taken to them so naturally, it was as if she had used them before. Ardyn was learning for the first time, and he'd never thought it would be such a feat until he saw it.

They flexed and rolled, stiff and somehow skinnier than Ibis's. The weeks she'd spent with them tucked away behind her had caused atrophy. Not only did she have to learn to use her wings, she needed to get the strength back in them, too.

He pulled back behind the wall. Why was she all of a sudden interested in training? She'd been so stubborn about it before. had Ibis gotten to her finally? He sure hoped so. Ardyn could do incredible things, with or without her mutation. He hated to see her cooped up in the lab with Donnie, unhappy.

He had to hand it to Ibis, the woman had a way with people.